


Healing

by spaletrees23



Category: The Border Trilogy - Cormac McCarthy
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, Jail, M/M, Mentions of Knife Wounds, No major straying from the plot, Really minor Spanish that may or may not be accurate, stuff that didn’t happen but could have
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-13
Updated: 2020-12-13
Packaged: 2021-03-10 20:40:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,967
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28053300
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spaletrees23/pseuds/spaletrees23
Summary: The prison at Saltillo has torn John Grady and Rawlins apart, but they still find ways to heal together.
Relationships: John Grady Cole/Lacey Rawlins
Comments: 2
Kudos: 2





	Healing

**Author's Note:**

> Just some stuff that didn’t happen in the book but I think could have. Fluff. Hope y’all enjoy!

John Grady woke with the breathy ship’s horn and started to rub his eyes before remembering that the left one was still blue as a plum and about as tender. He groaned as he sat up and glanced about him at the empty cell. The morning light came through the bars in wide slats and he could dimly see the other prisoners shuffling about on the catwalk. There was always a moment of sweet haze in the mornings before he remembered where he was, before the knife blade of melancholy clarity when reality came crashing in. He thought that the parameters that the world sets for each of us are guarded with utmost secrecy until we’ve been cruelly allowed to taste what our lives would have been like without them. 

He rose and dusted the seat of his trousers and smoothed back his hair and went out. The yard was cool and silent. He sat against the wall, drawing in the dirt with a pebble and formulating ideas. What to do, what to do. He had nothing to trade for his freedom or his friend’s, no better price to bargain for. Then again, he thought, there really wasn’t much worse that could happen. Here he was sitting in a jail bruised half to a pulp and his friend knifed up in some ward and a man set out to make him the same way. It wouldn’t hurt to poke around some. 

After the meager noon meal he stood outside the little sultan’s shack and consulted the guard. 

Quiero hablar con Perez, he told the man. 

The man ducked in the door and said something to the hut’s occupant and stood once more outside, ushering John Grady in with a nod. 

When Perez saw him he leaned back in his little reappropriated school chair and put his feet up on the particle board desk.   
What do you want now? he said, his fingers laid tips together in a neat vaulted roof over his chest. 

John Grady sat stiffly in the chair before the desk and took a deep breath. I did some thinkin, he said. 

Thinking can be dangerous in a place like this. 

Well I done it anyway. I’d like to see Rawlins. 

You want to see him. 

Yes. 

You realize he is in the hospital ward. 

Yes. 

You cannot go in there. They have rules. 

I thought you was the one could work around those. 

You understand we would have to get the guards out. The nurses. 

I don’t need it to be for long even. Maybe sometime when everybody’s gone at the mess. 

You have thought about this some. 

I said I had. 

Why do you want to see him? Are you making plans?

No. 

You want to make sure I didn’t lie to you about his being alive?

Maybe. 

Perez sat forward, looking at the marbled grain of the table before him. He looked up. 

What do you possess in this place?

I have a bar of soap, an extra shirt, and a pack of cigarettes. John Grady stopped short of telling him about the knife. 

You think this is enough?

No. But if you wanted I could give you my rations or somethin. What do you normally make people pay you? Real money?

Just give me the cigarettes. You have whole pack?

Yeah. 

Good. I would like them. Then tomorrow at dinner time the nurses are gone for a few minutes at the end. I can get you there in this period of time. 

And after we’ll be even. 

No. We won’t. But I do not think you will be here very long after. 

John Grady was silent. He thought perhaps this was a threat, except for the fact that he himself had intuited the same sentiment. He stood. 

Well, he said. I thank you. 

Perez shook his hand and waved smilingly from his shoddy chair. John Grady nodded at him and turned to go. 

That night he slept poorly. He never slept well on that stained concrete floor but this night was worse than usual. His mind was filled with snippets of dreams. Bad memories from the past. Strange omens of famine. Walls around him sturdier than these. He gazed unknowingly at the empty space beside him where once they had sat and cared for their wounds, rolled out the knots in their shoulders. He let his back rest flat on the concrete and drew up his knees and tried to sleep again but he could only wait until dawn.

When he’d finished his dinner and put back his tray he went to wait discreetly outside Perez’ hut. He risked a cigarette, tapping the ash on the sole of his boot. Perez’ man walked John Grady to the side of the mess hall and beyond, through the corridor where he had last seen Rawlins being carried away by the guard. Silently they walked through this passageway. Perez’ man took out a ring of keys and opened a door there in the side of the hall. 

Tienes cinco minutos, said the man, stepping aside so he could enter the fluorescent lit ward. 

Gracias, said John Grady. 

He stepped gingerly across the threshold and heard the door shut behind him. He looked down the row of beds, carelessly made or rumpled with a body in them. At the end of the row he saw Rawlins’ sleeping form. His pale shoulders just showed under the dingy white sheet he lay in. The bruises were beginning to heal. John Grady knelt by the cot and put his hand on Rawlins’ wrist. The sleeping boy’s eyes fluttered open. 

Lacey, whispered John Grady. It’s me. 

John Grady? said Rawlins. His voice was low and husky with sleep. He had been squinting up at John Grady and he smiled faintly in the wan light. His eyes narrowed again. Bud. What are you doin here? he said, holding John Grady’s hand in his as if he were trying to make sure he were real. 

I just thought I’d come to see you, said John Grady. He squatted and rested his elbows on his knees and folded his hands one over the other. 

Rawlins shifted in the bed and groaned with the pain of it. How’d you get in here? he said. 

That don’t matter. How you keeping up?

How’s it look like?

John Grady looked down. Rawlins had twisted the sheets around his middle and John Grady could see nothing of the wrappings.

What do you do in here?

Rawlins gestured blankly and shook his head. His hair looked very dark in the eerie light and his eyes shone wet and the lashes dark. I don’t do nothin, he said. Sleep mostly. Walk around some when I can. Doctor’s only in here maybe once a day. 

What’d they do to you?

I don’t know. I can’t understand nothin they say and they know it so they don’t talk to me anymore. They put in stitches, I know that much. Hurt like a sumbitch. 

Look, bud, I don’t have very long in here. 

Okay. What’s it like out there?

John Grady shook his head. I reckon before long I’ll be in here too, he said. 

What’s that supposed to mean?

Nothin. Don’t worry about it. It’s all right anyway. I ain’t been in any big fights. 

That’s good. I wouldn’t want you startin a riot without me. 

John Grady grinned. He glanced at the clock and knelt once more, his hands on Rawlins’ and their faces close. 

I miss you, he whispered. 

Rawlins nodded. I miss you too. 

You keep doin okay, got it?

Yeah. Stay safe out there. 

I’ll sure try. 

When John Grady looked up Perez’ man was standing at the door. He turned back to Rawlins. 

I’ll see you, pardner. 

See you, bud. 

—

In the hotel room John Grady struggled to peel away the wrappings from his cuts. He had to arch his back to reach around to where the tape started, pulling the healing gashes a little too tight. He gave a short gasp of pain and tried again. 

You all right out there? said Rawlins from the shower. 

Yeah, said John Grady. Just workin on this tape. 

Whynt you wait til I get out there and I’ll give you a hand. 

John Grady sighed in defeat. All right, he said. 

He sat there in his jeans and bandages and listened to the hum of the pipes and the gentle snap of the water hitting the curtain. He could see Rawlins’ shadow solid and somber through the glossy cloth. When Rawlins had dried himself and wrapped the towel about his waist he came over to the bed. Quietly he sat down and shifted so he was kneeling behind John Grady. John Grady sucked in his breath as Rawlins slipped his finger under the topmost bandage and ran it around to find the end. 

Be gentle, said John Grady. 

I will be. Don’t you worry. 

Rawlins found where the end of the tape had been glued to the tape beneath it. He warned John Grady that he’d have to pull a bit. John Grady felt Rawlins’ hand on his back and heard the rip of the tape but felt no pain. 

You all right? said Rawlins. 

Yeah. 

Okay. Lift your arms now. 

As Rawlins unraveled the bandage from around his aching middle John Grady remembered that afternoon in the hospital ward. He had tried since then to imagine what was going on in Rawlins’ mind. Saved from the cruel and hungry world but still ultimately robbed of both security and agency. Now he felt like this had happened to him, to both of them. Without even the freedom to move painlessly. 

Rawlins was down to the last bit of tape and he had to climb down beside John Grady and peel the tape away from the wounds it was stuck to. When he saw the cuts he’d uncovered he looked up and back down and shook his head and said Damn, John Grady. John Grady took a deep breath and rested his arm on Rawlins’ shoulder as he kept working. The only sound was the shuffle and crackle of the tape, the clangs of doors from other rooms. His newly exposed skin felt cold. 

Shit, Lacey, said John Grady when a piece of the bandage pulled away from a wound it was stuck to. 

I’m sorry, bud. It ain’t wantin to come off good. 

John Grady rubbed the cut and waved his hand. It’s okay, he said. You’re doin fine. 

With a small and sharp motion of his hand Rawlins yanked away the end of the bandage, apologizing again. John Grady cursed quietly and thanked him and went to grab the tape and throw it away. Rawlins lingered for a moment on the bed, eyes on the red hashmarks on John Grady’s stomach. He didnt say anything, but he didn’t have to. 

When John Grady got into the shower that night the minutes old memory of caring hands working at the bandages and resting on his side to hold him steady haunted him. He could still feel Rawlins’ hand brushing the bones of his spine as he pulled the tape off below it. He could still feel Rawlins rubbing his thumb along each cut he uncovered to soothe it and make sure it hadn’t bled. He could feel the cool hands and hot breath on his skin as Rawlins worked earnestly at his task. John Grady’s eyes began to sting and he realized the water was turning cold. Rawlins was humming low and sweet in the room beyond. John Grady smiled to himself. The water mixed with the tears on his cheeks and he took a shaky breath and passed his wrist over his eyes and finished up.


End file.
